Boris Johnson accused of dropping pledge to afollow data not datesa and urged to wait for more vaccinations before easing restrictions

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Leading scientists have warned that the government is risking a third wave of Covid-19 by easing the lockdown at a time when official data still shows virus hotspots across many parts of the country.

With the UK poised to lift many Covid restrictions on Monday, the scientists accuse ministers of abandoning their promises to afollow the data, not datesa in a rush to reopen society and the economy.

Irish government suggests talks after eight nights in which police have been attacked and cars torched

Boris Johnsonas government is resisting growing calls to hold a special crisis summit with Dublin to address rising tensions in Northern Ireland a amid growing international anxiety about a return to sectarian violence.

The Observer has been told by senior sources that suggestions from Dublin to London that the crisis requires a high-level intergovernmental conference to help stabilise the situation have met with no enthusiasm on the British side.

Commissioners allege No 10 distorted their work on inequality, after conclusions played down institutional racism

Officials at Downing Street have been accused of rewriting much of its controversial report into racial and ethnic disparities, despite appointing an independent commission to conduct an honest investigation into inequality in the UK.

The Observer has been told that significant sections of the report published on 31 March, which were criticised and debunked by health professionals, academics, business chiefs and crime experts, were not written by the 12 commissioners who were appointed last July.

Stella Moris says Britainas continued detention of WikiLeaks founder is compromising its global standing

Britain would be on stronger ground campaigning against authoritarian regimes if it pressed the Biden administration to drop its call to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges, Stella Moris, Assangeas partner, has told the Guardian.

Moris a who has had two children by Assange a is trying to broaden the campaign of support for him by pointing to the global damage to the UKas reputation by keeping him in jail for so long.

Armed Belgian police raids have lifted the lid on a sinister new front in the drugs war

At 5am on a chilly Tuesday morning last month, 1,600 police officers and balaclava-wearing special forces, bristling with arms and battering rams, were ordered into action around the Belgian port city of Antwerp.

More than 200 addresses were raided in what was the largest police operation ever conducted in the country and potentially one of the most significant moves yet against the increasingly powerful narco-gangs of western Europe.

Spokesman says accident hit the Natanz electrical distribution grid, a day after Iran switched on new centrifuges

A spokesman for Iranas civilian nuclear programme said an aaccidenta struck the electrical distribution grid of the Natanz nuclear facility, a day after the government announced it was starting up new uranium enrichment centrifuges.

Behrouz Kamalvandi announced the accident on Sunday, saying there were no injuries and no pollution. A mysterious explosion in July 2020 damaged Natanzas advanced centrifuge facility, with Iran later calling the incident sabotage.

Hartlepool sees influx of big names to bolster traditional support

Dozens of Labour MPs and shadow ministers have poured into Hartlepool before the townas crucial byelection, as Keir Starmeras party tries desperately to defend its traditional northern stronghold from the Tories.

With numbers of activists restricted by Covid-19 measures, a string of high-profile Labour names, led by Starmer himself, have visited a a sign of the partyas determination to prevent what would be seen as a damaging reversal if the Conservatives were to seize it on 6 May.

People queue for an hour for acutsa at the latest startups a and now supermarkets are opening meat-free counters

Ritchie Stainsby has spent most of the past week in the kitchen making as much vegan meat as possible to satisfy the hordes of customers who have flocked to the vegan butcher he opened earlier this month.

Faux, in Nottingham, has already seen hour-long queues of customers outside its premises and has been struggling to keep up with demand. It has sold out every day last week.

Ashmolean in Oxford turned down chance to buy exquisite paintings and drawings, which may now go to New York

Indian paintings and drawings had been his lifelong passion and, before his death in 2017, the artist Sir Howard Hodgkin hoped that his collection would be acquired by the Ashmolean in Oxford a only for the museum to reject his offer amid concerns that some of the works should never have left India.

Now Britainas loss could be Americaas gain. Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York have discussed the possibility of acquiring works thought to be worth more than APS7.2m. The collection contains more than 120 exquisite paintings and drawings dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

India hits vaccination milestone as European rollout picks up speed and England prepares to open non-essential retail and outdoor areas of pubs

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New Covid-19 cases in India surged to a record 152,879 as the country battled a second wave of infections by pushing for faster vaccinations, with some states considering tougher restrictions to slow the spread of the virus.

India leads the world in the daily average number of new infections reported, accounting for one in every six infections reported globally each day.

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Dutch roller-coaster fans who were willing to endure nose swabs to get their adrenaline fix were allowed back into a theme park over the weekend in an experiment to ease prolonged Covid-19 restrictions.

Two thousand tickets were on offer at the aHellendoorna amusement park, which on Saturday became the first in the Netherlands to reopen since coronavirus lockdown measures forced it to temporarily shut down last year.

Today we are at Adventure Park #Hellendoorn for their pilot opening day!
(negative covid-19 test required)

Feels great to finally get on some rides again! pic.twitter.com/7jk7M1fZRF

Almost all the people who disappear are found. But in the past year, many safety nets for the most vulnerable have been lost

He sat on the deserted platform shortly after 10am and carefully removed his grey Adidas trainers. Then he jumped on to the train track and lay down, waiting.

The driver saw him too late. The 5ft 7in 20-something died instantly at Londonas Clapham North underground station. It was 7 April last year; the death went largely unnoticed as the country suffered its first lockdown amid the peak of Covid-19as first wave.

Contrasting lessons from the two countries, both with high rates of inoculation against the virus, show the danger is not past

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A trio of countries stand out for the effectiveness of their Covid-19 vaccination programmes: Israel, Chile and the UK. All have managed to inoculate an impressively high percentage of their people but each has fared very differently in controlling the disease.

Israel has done so well it is resuming university lectures, concerts and other mass gatherings and has opened up its restaurants and bars. By contrast, Chile is experiencing soaring levels of Covid cases and faces new lockdown restrictions.

Young people have as much chance of winning the lottery as of getting serious blood clots from the AstraZeneca vaccine

Last Wednesday, the European Medicines Agency stated there was a plausible link between the Oxford/AstraZeneca (Vaxzevria) vaccine and rare types of blood clotting, which the MHRA estimates may happen in one in 100,000 young adults who get the vaccine.

It is challenging to think of such low risks: when we have to count the zeros, all intuition goes. So what else has roughly a one in 100,000 chance for a young adult? We could choose from the risk of dying when under general anaesthesia, or in a skydiving jump, or, on the positive side, winning the Lotto jackpot if you bought 450 tickets, or guessing the last five digits of someoneas mobile phone number.

Latest Opinium poll finds 44% approve of handling of pandemic with 36% disapproving, the best result since last May

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Overall approval for the governmentas handling of the Covid pandemic is now positive for the first time since May last year, in the latest sign that the vaccine rollout has helped transform its fortunes.

The latest Opinium poll for the Observer found that 44% now approve of the governmentas Covid handling, with 36% disapproving. Overall, it recorded a nine-point lead for the Conservatives over Labour, the largest Tory lead since last May.

It is 20 years since Jon Ronson wrote Them, his eye-popping investigation into conspiracy theorists. Now, in a world awash with tales of paedophile elites and puppet masters, is he any closer to understanding it all?

In 1999 I sat in a Vancouver cafA(c) with a group of anti-capitalist activists. Theyad just returned from protesting the WTO in Seattle to find a new, far stranger foe in town a David Icke. He was there to lecture about how the ruling elite are actually child-sacrificing, blood-drinking paedophile lizards in human disguise.

Nobody had ever suggested such a thing before, and the activists were working to get his books seized and destroyed. They were alarmed not just by the echoes of antisemitism but because something startling was happening. Icke was beginning to win over people who should have been on their side. I wrote back then that they were aseeing an omen of the blackest kind, the future of thought itself: a time when irrational thought would sweep the landa. But this wasnat prophecy on my part. I thought they were probably being overdramatic.

Efraim Zuroff watched the Adolf Eichmann trial on TV 60 years ago. It was the beginning of his long quest for justice

He describes himself as athe only Jew who prays for the good health of Nazisa. As the last Nazi hunter tracking down the last surviving Nazis from the Holocaust, Efraim Zuroff is in a race against time.

Those who took part in the systematic murder of six million Jews in Europe are now over the age of 90, and almost all are frail or sick. Zuroff himself is 72 a born three years after the end of the war a and has been hunting former Nazis for more than 40 years. He is as committed to the task as ever.

With Putin and Xi moving into an ever closer alliance, Joe Bidenas untested US administration may be pushed to the brink

It may just be coincidence that Russia was piling military pressure on Ukraine last week at the same time as China noisily rattled sabres around Taiwan. Spring, to mangle Tennyson, is when a young manas fancy turns to war a and that twisted maxim may even apply to ageing thugs such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

Russia and China are moving into ever closer alliance. While there is no evidence of direct collusion over Ukraine and Taiwan, presidents Putin and Xi are doubtless fully aware of each otheras actions, which have an identical, mutually reinforcing effect: putting the wind up Joe Bidenas untested US administration.

The Observer and Guardian writer, who has died of cancer aged 48, was a woman of passion and courage, says her news editor

aI would be lying if I said that the last decade hasnat been the best of my life. Iave been lucky in love, fulfilled in my work, surrounded by friends, laughed more than I ever thought possible at the most ridiculous of things. I can say with absolute honesty that I have had a lovely time and I donat regret any of it.a

Those words came from a piece Sarah wrote for the Observer two years ago. It was unforgettable. Titled Game of Thrones, cancer and me, it was about her journey through the disease that last week claimed her life, and how her passion for popular culture (in particular GoT) gave her something to hold on to in dark times. The piece wasnat miserable (although it made me cry for a long time afterwards) or angry. Instead it was bold, practical, reflective and witty. Just like Sarah herself.

Your mother wonat have forgotten the incident, says Mariella Frostrup. Sheas probably paralysed by her inability to process what you endured

The dilemma When I was 11, I was sexually abused over the course of a year. It was the 1980s, we trusted adults and I had private lessons at my teacheras home. I eventually told my mum and the lessons stopped, but we never discussed it.

I blanked it out until something sparked my memory when I was 18 and I brought it up with her. It turned out shead blanked it, too. She apologised for not remembering.

An ambitious plan to take overnight services through the Channel tunnel reflects a growing interest in sustainable travel

It is being hailed as the latest evidence of a new dawn for the European sleeper train. Citing changes in attitude wrought by the two crises of the climate emergency and the Covid pandemic, a new night service in 2022 was announced last week between Brussels and Prague, stopping at Amsterdam, Berlin and Dresden, with tickets expected to cost from a!60 one way.

But an even more ambitious project could deliver Britons to continental Europe via surely one of the most romantic modes of transport around, Elmer van Buuren, a co-founder of the European Sleeper cooperative, told the Observer.

Unpublished letters detail famed sopranoas painful relationships with husband, mother and Aristotle Onassis

Her mother blackmailed her, her husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini stole from her, and shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis was violent and abandoned her for Jackie Kennedy. Soprano Maria Callas was adored by audiences worldwide but she never knew real love offstage, and her life was even more tragic than previously realised, according to research.

In writing a new biography, Lyndsy Spence was given access to Callasas previously unpublished correspondence and other material, which casts light on the torment of her marriage, the abuse to which Onassis subjected her and sexual harassment by the director of one of the worldas foremost conservatoires.

Riz Ahmed gives a career-best performance in an astonishing drama thatas rooted in reality and fully captioned for all

In the 2020 drama Mogul Mowgli, co-writer and star Riz Ahmed played a British-Pakistani rapper struck down by a debilitating illness on the eve of his international breakthrough. In Sound of Metal, which premiered in Toronto in 2019, Ahmed plays an American drummer whose life is turned upside down by the onset of deafness. Stylistically these two films could not be more different; Sound of Metal is acutely realist with a docudrama edge, while Mogul Mowgli has been described as a aSufi horror musical melodrama hybrida. Yet both films are concerned with identity, a thorny issue with which Ahmed wrestled in the eye-opening 2020 short The Long Goodbye, and which runs through his finest work, including this remarkable Oscar contender.

Ahmed is Ruben Stone, drumming with singer-guitarist Lou (Olivia Cooke) in the noise-merchant two-piece Blackgammon. Theyare partners on and offstage, touring the US in a converted RV that doubles as a recording studio. But when Rubenas hearing abruptly fails, he finds himself outside the bubble in which he has existed for so long.

• 65 moves Japanese to 11 under, with four tied for second
  
• Justin Rose among quartet after battling his way to a 72

Moving day? Matsuyamaas day. In proving how even a brief delay in a tournament a in this case 75 minutes a can totally shift its complexion Hideki Matsuyama emerged to leave the remainder of the Masters field grasping for air.

He now sits 18 holes from the making of history; as the first Asian winner of the Masters and the only Japanese man to win a major. A decade ago, Matsuyama won low amateur honours at Augusta. Since then, his best finish has been fifth in 2015; a repeat of the closing round of 66 as pieced together then would be more than sufficient to seal what would be the greatest achievement of his career.

• Updates from the the title decider at Jubilee Stadium
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The Victory players have all received their medal but we didnat get to hear from captain Angie Beard unfortunately because the Fox broadcast cut to an ad just as she was introduced. Go figure. On that note I am going to love you and leave you. Samantha Lewisa wrap-up will be live from very early tomorrow morning to analyse all we have just witnessed. Bye for now.

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Sky Blues captain Teresa Polias is gracious in defeat. She thanks the crowd for turning up, congratulates Victory.

aTo our group, hold your heads high ladies. What a season weave had. What an amazing group you are. Ante, thank you. Four grand finals in a row, thatas something special, so well done to you. But girls, we keep going. You keep your heads very high. You deserve to. Today didnat go our way unfortunately but youall take lessons from today and I know youall continue to be successful, so well done and I canat wait to see us go again next season.a

Children in care born to EU parents face complex barriers to remaining in the UK

Three years on, the individual tales of Windrush injustice still have the power to catch my breath. Men and women who moved to Britain as children decades ago, who found themselves banished from the UK for the remainder of their life after a holiday abroad, wrongfully arrested, detained and threatened with deportation, and denied life-saving care on the NHS. So many stories of the British state ruining black lives, but one stands out for its exquisite cruelty: that of Jay, the son of a Windrush immigrant.

Related: From Macpherson to Windrush: UK inquiries into racial injustice

Spring is finally here. I know this because of the chorus of MPs complaining that they canat get an appointment for a haircut before May and lamenting that there are no restaurant tables available for a spot of plotting over an alfresco lunch. These will sound like nice problems to have in countries where Covid is rampant. Infection levels in India have leapt to a record high. Brazil is in a terrible place. Many of our neighbours in Europe are imposing fresh restrictions on life as they struggle to avoid being engulfed by a third wave.

Britons are in the much happier position of seeing infection rates plunging. The number of daily new cases was approaching 1,000 per million people when Covid was at its most virulent in January. That has now fallen to fewer than 50 in a million. Boris Johnson has reaped a dividend, deserved or not, in an approval rating that has climbed back into positive territory. The reward for everyone else is tomorrowas easing of restrictions when hairdressers, clothing retailers and beer gardens will be among the places permitted to reopen. The prime minister hails this as evidence that the aroadmapa back to normality is on track. The government wants to celebrate, but a wise one would do so very cautiously. To use my favourite Van-Tamism, theyad be extremely foolish to atear the pants out of ita.

The Northern Ireland conundrum over Brexit was always insoluble. As John Major and Tony Blair pointed out in the referendum campaign, if the UK left the single market and customs union there had to be a border somewhere, either on the island of Ireland or in the Irish Sea. In either case, someoneas rights were going to be hurt: nationalists or unionists.

In December 2019, Boris Johnson opted to put the border in the Irish Sea to get his Brexit deal over the line. He then chose to lie about it, live on TV, saying there would be no border and that no one would have to fill in any forms. At first, the unionist response was muted. Arlene Foster even said NI had the best of both worlds.

The social media giant is still a law unto itself. Can anybody hold it to account?

Half a billion Facebook usersa accounts stolen. Personal information compromised. Telephone numbers and birth dates drifting across the internet being used for God knows what. And for four days, from Facebookas corporate headquarters, nothing but silence.

If this sounds familiar, itas because it is. This week saw reports of a massive new Facebook breach and everything about it, from Facebookas denials of the words adataa and abreacha to its repeated refusal to answer journalistsa questions, has been uncannily reminiscent of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Jetting off to Magaluf may or may not be possible this summer, but just hanging out at Stansted is half the fun

At the beginning of lockdown I reread Alan Warneras novel The Stars in the Bright Sky, about a group of young women on their way to Las Vegas or maybe Benidorm or Magaluf, destined instead to spend their holiday drinking and bitching at Gatwick airport. I was drawn back to this book when it became clear no real holidays were to be found in my own immediate future, and when I realised what I yearned for was not only the foreign house or lake or pastry, but the airport itself.

It was with tender solidarity then that I recently clicked on a piece about aairport culturea. Investigating what Generation Z do when not online, where these teenagers who have little money and no appetite for alcohol, and no social spaces designed to hold them, actually go, Vice discovered an as yet undocumented subculture hanging around Stansted.

The deal between big business and government a donations in return for low taxes or none a remains absolutely unchanged

For four decades, the basic deal between big American corporations and politicians has been simple. Corporations provide campaign funds. Politicians reciprocate by lowering corporate taxes and doing whatever else corporations need to boost profits.

Related: Don"t expect Biden to trumpet lofty aims for his rescue plans a he"s simply Mr Fix-it | Robert Reich

The recent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report generated controversy, but little light, which is what failure looks like when your purpose is to shed light on the disadvantages faced by ethnic minorities. So letas get the facts straight, labour market and living standards wise.

Related: Race report: "the government has completely missed the mark"

There will be thousands tomorrow, shivering in some icy pub garden, raising their glass to the next step on the governmentas roadmap out of lockdown, as outdoor drinking resumes. At the start of the pandemic, they could have done so in thousands more venues than they will be able to tomorrow. In the decade following the 2008 financial crash, almost a quarter of all pubs closed a around 1,100 a year. Over the past year, lockdowns and social distancing rules have led to another 2,500 closing their doors permanently a 5% of all pubs shut down in a single year.

When a pub closes down, what is lost is not just a place to drink or get drunk. It is also a social space, a place for connections, for conversations, for serendipitous meetings, for finding respite from loneliness. A place, too, that often provides a sense of belonging and attachment. A alocala is not called a local for nothing.

If the president pushes through his proposed investments, he will revitalise the economy and make America great again

The dramatic scale and ambition of Joe Bidenas public spending and tax plans came into sharper focus last week. The emerging picture is breathtaking. As expected, the US president aims to repair the damage done by the pandemic. But huge, longer-term investments in jobs, education and clean energy, and his new insistence on the social responsibilities of big business, point to something far more momentous: a watershed in American economic policymaking.

Comparisons abound with Franklin D Rooseveltas 1930s New Deal. Progressive politicians hail an end to the post-2008 age of austerity. Neoliberalismas divisive grip is at last being broken; free market dogmas are in retreat, they say. Biden is re-legitimising the power of government and the state to equally serve the interests of all its citizens. This revolution, it is claimed, will dent populismas appeal and may save democracy itself. Such optimism is rare in contemporary politics and is not to be discouraged. The prospect that a leader a any leader a can and will achieve a decisive change for the better in ordinary peopleas lives is almost a novel idea these days. The absence of such hope and trust accounts for much that has gone wrong within western democracies in recent years. It has encouraged political extremism and the rise, beyond Europe, of authoritarian regimes.

If it can be achieved, the presidentas goal will transform the economic balance of power

More than a decade has passed without any progress in bringing the global tax system into the modern age. But less than three months after taking office, President Joe Biden has raised hopes of a breakthrough, with proposals that could kill tax havens dead and force multinationals to pay a fairer share of tax.

The change in tone could not be more marked. With last weekas proposal for a global minimum corporate tax rate, Washington has turned away from years of economic orthodoxy that stretched back to the early 1980s and prioritised a neoliberal world vision a of free-market competition, government indifference and unblinking advocacy of globalisation.

Thomas Schreiber, 34, charged by Dorset police with murder, attempted murder and dangerous driving

A 34-year-old man has been charged with the murder of a millionaire hotelier.

Police said Richard Sutton, who owned a string of top hotels in London, died on Wednesday during an incident at a property near Gillingham, Dorset.

He could be disarmingly funny, but the Duke of Edinburghas erratic quips often caused genuine offence

Prince Philipas off-the-cuff remarks have become part of the knotty fabric of national life, provoking amused indulgence from some and genuine hurt among others. His gaffes were legendary. Some critics believe they were not gaffes at all but rather unforgivable slurs. His supporters preferred to brush them off, saying his comments were well intended, if imperfectly delivered.

One thing everyone can agree on: he was a serial offender.

With red states set to gain seats, the GOP is ready to disadvantage Democrats and deliver the US House

Republicans believe they have a great chance to win control of the US House of Representatives in 2022, needing a swing of about six seats to depose Nancy Pelosi as speaker and derail Joe Bidenas agenda.

Related: On the House review: John Boehneras lament for pre-Trump Republicans

Four journalists face death penalty after being charged with spying and acollaborating with the enemya

A group of Yemeni journalists who survived years of torture in Houthi prisons are calling on the international community to pressure the rebels to free four of their colleagues facing the death penalty.

Abdel-Khaleq Amran, Akram al-Walidi, Hareth Hamid and Tawfiq al-Mansouri were arrested along with six other journalists in raids in the capital, Sanaaa, in the summer of 2015, shortly after the Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemenas war.

In the early days of his post-presidential life, Trump has crashed a wedding and welcomed maskless Mar-a-Lago guests

What do US presidents do once they leave the White House? Barack Obama kite-surfed with Richard Branson. Jimmy Carter returned to his peanut farm and found that it was $1m in debt. George W Bush got into painting.

Itas early days, but Donald Trumpas post-presidential life has been just like his presidency: non-traditional. Aside from setting up an eyebrow-raising new website, and releasing wannabe tweets as official statements, heas spent most of his time inside his new home at Mar-a-Lago, the giant and exclusive resort he owns in south Florida.

Quake hit offshore near city of Malang with country already reeling from cyclone disaster

At least eight people were killed after a 6.0 magnitude quake struck off the coast of Indonesiaas main Java island on Saturday, as the country reels from a cyclone disaster.

The afternoon quake hit offshore about 45 kilometres south-west of Malang city in East Java, damaging homes as well as schools, government offices and mosques across the region. It did not trigger a tsunami.

Activists fear billion-dollar climate deal will bolster Bolsonaro and reward illegal forest clearance a but US says action canat wait

The US is negotiating a multi-billion dollar climate deal with Brazil that observers fear could help the reelection of president Jair Bolsonaro and reward illegal forest clearance in the Amazon.

That is the concern of indigenous groups, environmental campaigners and civil society activists, who say they are being shut out of the most important talks on the future of the rainforest since at least 1992.

The Mancunian author on becoming a victim of a race-hate crime, walking the Pennine Way a and the memoir that followed

• Read an extract from I Belong Here by Anita Sethi

Anita Sethi is a Manchester-born writer, journalist and literary festival chair. I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain, is the first in a trilogy of books that will blend memoir, current affairs and nature writing. Sethi has launched a foundation with the aim of getting books to those who cannot afford them. For details visit anitasethi.com/i-belong-here.

Was writing I Belong Here therapeutic?
It was certainly cathartic. Writing is very much a way of saying aI am herea. I was attacked with words and I felt how hurtful and harmful words can be, so I wanted to use words to create something healing. I wanted the book to be a force for good and for something joyous to come out of this horrific experience. Writing it was a journey in itself and it did help me to process the complex thoughts and emotions I experienced as a result of what happened.

The American folk musician and activist on playful lyrics, older women and her late stepdaughter, Kirsty MacColl

The New York-born folk musician Peggy Seeger, 85, has been working and touring non-stop since she was 17. In 1958 she wed a friend so that she could stay in the UK with her already-married lover, Ewan MacColl. She and MacColl went on to make more than 40 albums together, marry and have three children. Seegeras partner of the past 30 years is the traditional singer Irene Pyper-Scott, who lives in New Zealand; Seeger lives in Iffley, Oxford. She has just released her 24th solo album, First Farewell a her first to be recorded solely with family members.

How has the pandemic been for you?
I was meant to be touring last year with my son Calum. Travelling with all our gear in the back: 26 dates, a fantastic tour, all slashed off, bang. I was doing tours on my own until I was 79, including standing at my merch table. Thatas why Iave got so many grey hairs. Now I grieve so much for the people who have died because of this pandemic. I also grieve for people of my age losing their last years to Covid-19.

Your partner lives in New Zealand. How has that been?
We talk twice every day in the three-hour windows where weare both awake, trying not to despair. She couldnat cope with living in the UK [before the pandemic]. It was too crowded for her and too cold, and I couldnat live there. She is living a completely normal life over there a more of a normal life than ever before, Iad say. Theyare lucky in New Zealand. Unlike us, they have a sensible prime minister.

Your new album, First Farewell, is moving and playful. One song, Lubrication, has a lyric about older bodies needing agrease to help aem do their jobsa. Youare relishing the euphemisms as you sing, arenat you?
I am! Folk is full of raunchy songs but theyare not often sung. I have another song called The Young Virgin, where a woman has 40 lovers who bring along the tools of their trade: a blacksmithas anvil, the glistening pipe of a druggist, the lance of a doctora| [laughs]. I looked up things men called their penises when I did that and I was blown away. Theyare all action. Women call their vaginas comforting things, about home, enclosure, hugs. Although my favourite is one from Eve Ensleras Vagina Monologues: coochie snorcher.

Another song, The Invisible Woman, is about women getting older and being ignored. What inspired that?
Walking down Oxford Street when I was about 60 with my daughter, who was in her mid-20s. I watched man after man approach us, look at my face, then move on to hers, then their eyes look right down her body and up again. It was a pattern, and I realised I didnat get that treatment any more. Itas not that I liked it. I have been pushed up against a wall, flashed, been felt up on the underground, all of those things that weare now rightly talking about trying to get men to stop doing. As an older woman, people also ignore what you say. Itas as if youare not there. I keep talking.

Another woman is murdered and another and another... Nothing will happen until men organise men to stop it

The creator and star of Stath Lets Flats, who scooped three Baftas last year, on the incomparable boost of winning big in Covid times

• Remi Weekes: aTo be nominated for a Bafta is up there in terms of great fantasiesa

The British-Cypriot actor, comedian and screenwriter Jamie Demetriou is the star and creator of Channel 4 comedy Stath Lets Flats. At last Julyas Bafta TV awards the show won best scripted comedy, and Demetriou won best male comedy performance and best comedy writer.

When Jamie Demetriou won the 2020 British Academy Television Craft award for best comedy writer, he was eating takeaway dumplings with his flatmate. Because of the way his living room is laid out, he was facing away from the screen, when his flatmate said to him: aJamie, look.a He turned around to see his pre-recorded acceptance speech playing on the TV. aIt definitely felt surreal,a he recalls now. To celebrate, they went up to the roof of their building, something they had never done before. aWe were like, aIs there a roof here? It would be quite nice to go on a roof and have a glass of champagne.aa

The author of Annihilation delivers a slick sci-fi thriller that pitches a tech boffin into a deadly eco-mystery

Best known for Annihilation, his 2014 sci-fi thriller and first of a trilogy that delivered equally on genre values and philosophical depth (it was also admirably adapted into a 2018 film starring Natalie Portman), Jeff VanderMeeras 13th novel, Hummingbird Salamander is an enigmatic eco-thriller that delivers in the same vein and on the subject of worlds a inner worlds such as the biosphere a that are coming apart.

aImpossible to tell how fast society was collapsing because history had been riddled through with disinformation and reality was composed of half-fictions and full-on paranoid conspiracy theories.a

Channel 5as new drama was a cliffhanger in one sense only; Stacey Solomon sparked joy; and all was revealed in Katherine Parkinsonas beguiling debut play

Intruder (Channel 5) | My5
Sort Your Life Out (BBC One) | iPlayer
Lights Up: Sitting (BBC Four) | iPlayer
This Is a Robbery (Netflix)
Wellington Paranormal (Sky Comedy) | sky.com

We are on a dramatic clifftop and a bitter, terrified man is pleading with his mistress not to go to the police. The path nears the cliff edge, stumble-close, and weare all breathlessly wondering if heall dare, even though there are witnesses nearby. Angela (Helen Behan) cheerfully spoils the looming mood with: aWhatare you going to do? Bash my head in and hope those ramblers donat see?a A few minutes later as she, increasingly wild-eyed, is desperately downing white wine in a chi-chi seafood place, Sam (Tom Meeten) grabs her wrists. aYouare mentally unstable. Youare an alcoholic. You need help.a

(Domino)
Whiteas funky discord finds its perfect soulmate in Holleyas melodies on this semi-improvised five-track outing

The singer and visual artist Lonnie Holley endured an Alabama childhood so appalling it would strain credulity in fiction. He found success in later life as an instinctual artist, creating work from waste. Since 2012, when he made his recorded music debut, Holleyas second creative career has flourished as his free-associating, jazz speak-sing delivery has found new contexts.

This five-track collaboration with Virginia-based producer Matt White is semi-improvised, with Holley decanting the content of his notebooks in loose, inspired, one-take flurries. His open-ended melodies touch on humanityas solipsism, its over-reliance on tech, on our poisoned air and water. Throughout, there runs a deep vein of Afro-futurism that connects this non-aligned music to electric jazz and P-Funk; Gil Scott-Heronas 2010 album, Iam New Here, is a close cousin.

Our personal recipe collections catalogue the food we have loved a and the dishes we dreamed of making

The cookbooks Iave written about over the past three months were not included randomly. They werenat selected because they offered up 97 clever things to do with a courgette and a spiraliser, or for their novel ways with quinoa. They were chosen because they had a serious impact on how we cook and how we eat. They were big sellers. As a result, week by week, people have discovered that they had the volume I was eulogising on their shelves. Some readers have owned a few of them.

But as this is the last column in the series, itas time to look at a collection of recipes almost everyone has. I certainly have one. Mine has the word aChallengea embossed on the front. Thatas not a description of how hard the recipes are. Itas the name of the venerable stationery company which manufactured the blue, hardcover A4 notebook within which those ideas for dinner are contained. It is our collection of recipes cut from magazines and newspapers, photocopied from a friendas book or scribbled down by a relative. It is an unplanned collage of a good life, or a feverish attempt at one, measured out in ingredients, volumes and oven temperatures. It is the ballad of traybakes and crumbles, of new and sophisticated ways with pasta and swift things to do with chicken and a bunch of lemons.

My sonas ecstatic response to my drawing skills leaves me in no doubt a Damien Hirst would be blown away

If you havenat drawn something for a two-year-old recently, I highly recommend it. The reaction is immediate and delirious, although it could be down to my particularly good skills as an artist. My Iggle Piggle is renowned, my self-portrait very nearly a photograph. And as for my sharks? Please. Itas a very real prospect that if Damien Hirst ever saw one of my great whites, head pour his formaldehyde down the sink in despair. My dinosaurs are the pride of Stoke Newington, since I can draw all two dinosaur types a standing T-Rex and lumbering diplodocus a with the canny brio of a master draughtsman. I donat include feathers because Iam not ready for that yet. Iam just about at peace with phonetic spelling and Pluto not being a planet, so feathered dinosaurs will have to wait.

Even so, the effect is uncanny. Itas said that when George Stubbsas famous painting of Whistlejacket was displayed by Lord Rockingham, the horse in question found it so lifelike he tried ato get at it, to fight and to kick ita. We can never know for certain how a dinosaur would respond to the witchcraft that is my recreation of their form, but itas safe to say weare lucky they had a full and frank conversation with that meteor 66m years ago, or theyad probably be tearing my house to pieces.

The comedian on hobbies taking over her life and missing hugs with her daughter

Sunday morninga| Starts in my own bed at home, or else Iam in serious trouble. Gone are the days when Iad wake up with a daze in some unknown location. Iave no reason to get up, so will only do so once Iam hungry. But not before Iave bathed. I canat eat dirty.

Do you work? I never really had weekends before Covid. I was always touring and gigging. I miss the adrenaline of standing in the wings not knowing what might happen. Now I carve Sunday out to stay away from my writing desk, and it turns out thatas quite pleasant.

Homespun versions of fertilisers are likely to have more downsides than up

I see them every day on my social media feeds a the amazing ahome remedya fertilisers that promise to dramatically boost the growth of houseplants. Everything from leftover pasta water to banana skin a even whole eggs a are touted as all-purpose elixirs. But how legitimate are these claims?

Letas start with pasta water, which contains starch that leaches out during the cooking process. It is claimed that when cooled this starch solution is a plant fertiliser the effects of which verge on the miraculous.

The new financial year started last week and thereas no better time to take stock of all your investments

Happy new tax year. While it is unlikely that many champagne corks were popped, 6 April was a landmark for anyone who wants to take a fresh look at their finances.

aThis is often a good time to take stock,a says Sarah Coles, a personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. aRevisit things like savings, investments and pensions at least once a year to make sure they still reflect your needs.a

From the coast to the mountains, we pick remote and characterful hotels where you can forget all about the outside world

If you manage to scale Scafell Pike, you might just be able to make out the giant letters spelling out INN on the side of this building. In the Lake Districtas isolated valley, the Wasdale Head has transformed itself over the centuries from a farmhouse to a no-nonsense hotel aimed at walkers and climbers. Thereas a bar with hearty meals as well as a posher restaurant. Wasdale may be remote, but itas also very popular; there are now a handful of cottages attached to the inn, and camping is allowed, with breakfast thrown in.
aC/ Double rooms from APS120, including breakfast, wasdale.com

The interior secretary has announced the formation of a new unit to investigate the aepidemica of violence

For 30 long years, Ana White has been searching for her sister, Andrea aChicka White. The then 22-year-old Native mother of four, along with an eight-month-old baby, had traveled to Eureka, California, in July 1991 for a court date, after an auto accident. She was spotted hitchhiking home along a freeway near Blue Lake, in northern California. She has been missing ever since.

White, who described her sister as a great mother and very giving person, has repeatedly prodded local law enforcement, who she said have largely given her alip servicea, and helped to spread awareness about the case through social media posts. But for three frustrating decades the situation has remained unchanged.

Now, after the secretary of the interior, Deb Haaland, announced the formation of a new unit to investigate the aepidemica of missing and murdered Native Americans, she said she has suddenly found herself with a renewed sense of hope.

aItas like, oh, suddenly Iam breathing. Itas like Iam being resuscitated,a said White, a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. aIf my feelings were to be visible, thatas what youad see. Somehow, Iave got this oxygen tank right here, and Deb Haaland put it on my side.a

Haaland, the first Indigenous cabinet secretary in US history, announced the formation of the Missing & Murdered Unit (MMU) within the Bureau of Indian Affairs office of justice services earlier this month, just two weeks after being sworn in.

In a statement, Haaland, an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna, described the violence against Native people as a acrisis that has been underfunded for decadesa.

Spokesman says accident hit the Natanz electrical distribution grid, a day after Iran switched on new centrifuges

A spokesman for Iranas civilian nuclear programme said an aaccidenta struck the electrical distribution grid of the Natanz nuclear facility, a day after the government announced it was starting up new uranium enrichment centrifuges.

Behrouz Kamalvandi announced the accident on Sunday, saying there were no injuries and no pollution. A mysterious explosion in July 2020 damaged Natanzas advanced centrifuge facility, with Iran later calling the incident sabotage.

Boris Johnson accused of dropping pledge to afollow data not datesa and urged to wait for more vaccinations before easing restrictions

• Coronavirus a latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

Leading scientists have warned that the government is risking a third wave of Covid-19 by easing the lockdown at a time when official data still shows virus hotspots across many parts of the country.

With the UK poised to lift many Covid restrictions on Monday, the scientists accuse ministers of abandoning their promises to afollow the data, not datesa in a rush to reopen society and the economy.

Stella Moris says Britainas continued detention of WikiLeaks founder is compromising its global standing

Britain would be on stronger ground campaigning against authoritarian regimes if it pressed the Biden administration to drop its call to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges, Stella Moris, Assangeas partner, has told the Guardian.

Moris a who has had two children by Assange a is trying to broaden the campaign of support for him by pointing to the global damage to the UKas reputation by keeping him in jail for so long.

Over 100 Instagram accounts are promoting dangerous antivax views and selling adetoxa products, investigation finds

• Coronavirus a latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

Covid conspiracy theorists are seeking to profit from the millions of followers they have built up on Instagram during the pandemic by marketing health supplements, wellness courses and juicers to them.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has identified more than 100 Covid conspiracy accounts promoting products to an audience of almost 6 million people on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

India hits vaccination milestone as European rollout picks up speed and England prepares to open non-essential retail and outdoor areas of pubs

• Covid hotspots could lead to third wave in UK, scientists warn
• UK vaccination programme on track despite AstraZeneca problems
• India steps up vaccine effort as Covid cases hit record high
• How big are the blood clot risks of the AstraZeneca jab?
• See all our coronavirus coverage

10.12am BST

Poland recorded 24,856 fresh coronavirus cases and 749 further deaths over the past 24 hours to Saturday morning, against 28,487 cases reported on Friday, the health ministry said.

First News reports:

The healthcare system is now handling 34,167 Covid-19 hospitalisations, down from 34,550 recorded the day prior, including 3,373 patients on ventilators, against the total of 4,386 ventilators available, the health ministry said on Twitter.

The health ministry also reported that 430,830 people are under quarantine. So far, 2,143,065 people have recovered.

9.58am BST

New Covid-19 cases in India surged to a record 152,879 as the country battled a second wave of infections by pushing for faster vaccinations, with some states considering tougher restrictions to slow the spread of the virus.

India leads the world in the daily average number of new infections reported, accounting for one in every six infections reported globally each day.

States consider tougher restrictions to slow spread of virus as country fights second wave of infections

• Coronavirus a latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

New Covid-19 cases in India surged to a record 152,879 as the country battled a second wave of infections by pushing for faster vaccinations, with some states considering tougher restrictions to slow the spread of the virus.

India leads the world in the daily average number of new infections reported, accounting for one in every six infections reported globally each day.

Head of disease control admits Chinese vaccines adonat have very high protection ratesa

• Coronavirus a latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

Chinaas top disease control official has admitted that the effectiveness of the countryas domestically produced vaccines is low as it emerged the authorities are considering mixing them to try to offer greater protection against coronavirus.

The rare admission of weakness on the part of Beijingas pandemic approach came from the director of the China Centres for Disease Control, Gao Fu, who said Chinese vaccines adonat have very high protection ratesa.

In the early days of his post-presidential life, Trump has crashed a wedding and welcomed maskless Mar-a-Lago guests

What do US presidents do once they leave the White House? Barack Obama kite-surfed with Richard Branson. Jimmy Carter returned to his peanut farm and found that it was $1m in debt. George W Bush got into painting.

Itas early days, but Donald Trumpas post-presidential life has been just like his presidency: non-traditional. Aside from setting up an eyebrow-raising new website, and releasing wannabe tweets as official statements, heas spent most of his time inside his new home at Mar-a-Lago, the giant and exclusive resort he owns in south Florida.

Playing Billie Holiday was a daunting task for the first-time actor and now Oscar nominee, but sheas having a blast at the virtual award ceremonies

• Jamie Demetriou: aWhen I won the awards, I almost felt sheepish to have good newsa
  

US singer-songwriter Andra Day plays the titular lead in The United States vs Billie Holiday. Her acclaimed performance as Holiday, her first movie role, has earned her multiple accolades including a Golden Globe for best actress and an Oscar nomination.

As the Golden Globe for best actress in the drama category was being announced on 28 February, Andra Day was sitting in a hotel room in West Hollywood with her hands clasped prayerfully under her chin. In normal times, she would only have been allowed a single guest at the awards ceremony, but on this occasion the 36-year-old, who plays the lead in The United States vs Billie Holiday, was joined by family and friends, co-stars from the film and members of her publicity team.

The disputed term is often used in fatal cases of police violence, but isnat recognized by some major medical bodies

Throughout the first phases of the Derek Chauvin murder trial, the defense attorney Eric Nelson has made passing reference to the term aexcited deliriuma as he attempts to build a case for his client.

Nelson referenced the phrase during opening arguments, has asked a number of witnesses about the term and may well explore it when the defense gets to present its case.

Efraim Zuroff watched the Adolf Eichmann trial on TV 60 years ago. It was the beginning of his long quest for justice

He describes himself as athe only Jew who prays for the good health of Nazisa. As the last Nazi hunter tracking down the last surviving Nazis from the Holocaust, Efraim Zuroff is in a race against time.

Those who took part in the systematic murder of six million Jews in Europe are now over the age of 90, and almost all are frail or sick. Zuroff himself is 72 a born three years after the end of the war a and has been hunting former Nazis for more than 40 years. He is as committed to the task as ever.

Unpublished letters detail famed sopranoas painful relationships with husband, mother and Aristotle Onassis

Her mother blackmailed her, her husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini stole from her, and shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis was violent and abandoned her for Jackie Kennedy. Soprano Maria Callas was adored by audiences worldwide but she never knew real love offstage, and her life was even more tragic than previously realised, according to research.

In writing a new biography, Lyndsy Spence was given access to Callasas previously unpublished correspondence and other material, which casts light on the torment of her marriage, the abuse to which Onassis subjected her and sexual harassment by the director of one of the worldas foremost conservatoires.

Armed Belgian police raids have lifted the lid on a sinister new front in the drugs war

At 5am on a chilly Tuesday morning last month, 1,600 police officers and balaclava-wearing special forces, bristling with arms and battering rams, were ordered into action around the Belgian port city of Antwerp.

More than 200 addresses were raided in what was the largest police operation ever conducted in the country and potentially one of the most significant moves yet against the increasingly powerful narco-gangs of western Europe.

The deal between big business and government a donations in return for low taxes or none a remains absolutely unchanged

For four decades, the basic deal between big American corporations and politicians has been simple. Corporations provide campaign funds. Politicians reciprocate by lowering corporate taxes and doing whatever else corporations need to boost profits.

Related: Don"t expect Biden to trumpet lofty aims for his rescue plans a he"s simply Mr Fix-it | Robert Reich

With Putin and Xi moving into an ever closer alliance, Joe Bidenas untested US administration may be pushed to the brink

It may just be coincidence that Russia was piling military pressure on Ukraine last week at the same time as China noisily rattled sabres around Taiwan. Spring, to mangle Tennyson, is when a young manas fancy turns to war a and that twisted maxim may even apply to ageing thugs such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

Russia and China are moving into ever closer alliance. While there is no evidence of direct collusion over Ukraine and Taiwan, presidents Putin and Xi are doubtless fully aware of each otheras actions, which have an identical, mutually reinforcing effect: putting the wind up Joe Bidenas untested US administration.

Allowing the likes of Google and Facebook to reap the rewards of junk food ads leaves a sour taste in the mouth

Sometimes, in my most misanthropic moods, Iam seduced by a libertarian approach to advertising rules. You know, just let it all out there. Let them go for it. Maybe you still try to prevent outright lies, but actually maybe you donat even bother with that. Let them tell us that a McFlurry, say, brings eternal life and see whether doing so would really elevate sales even over the medium term a when the bloated corpses of the McFlurry gorgers begin to stack up.

And wead be done with expressions such as aincreases by up toa and ahelps preventa by which productsa efficacy can be almost infinitely exaggerated without a direct lie having been told. I think that might be refreshing, unless phrases by which false concepts are conveyed through an intricate lattice of literal truths turn out to be our current civilisationas only lasting art form, with anot even a black hole can eat three Shredded Wheata as the central masterpiece, brilliant because it is a lie made permissible only by the fact that no one is supposed to believe it.

The recent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report generated controversy, but little light, which is what failure looks like when your purpose is to shed light on the disadvantages faced by ethnic minorities. So letas get the facts straight, labour market and living standards wise.

Related: Race report: "the government has completely missed the mark"

• 65 moves Japanese to 11 under, with four tied for second
  
• Justin Rose among quartet after battling his way to a 72

Moving day? Matsuyamaas day. In proving how even a brief delay in a tournament a in this case 75 minutes a can totally shift its complexion Hideki Matsuyama emerged to leave the remainder of the Masters field grasping for air.

He now sits 18 holes from the making of history; as the first Asian winner of the Masters and the only Japanese man to win a major. A decade ago, Matsuyama won low amateur honours at Augusta. Since then, his best finish has been fifth in 2015; a repeat of the closing round of 66 as pieced together then would be more than sufficient to seal what would be the greatest achievement of his career.

• Former MLB star teams with billionaire Marc Lore in bid
• Pair would pay $1.5bn to longtime owner Glen Taylor

Former MLB star Alex Rodriguez and billionaire Marc Lore appear to be close to owning the Minnesota Timberwolves, finalizing a deal with current owner Glen Taylor, according to reports.

The pair released a statement on Saturday:

Ian Millhiser offers a perfect short read for a key moment in US constitutional history, after Republicans hijacked the court

If Congress follows Joe Bidenas $1.9tn Covid relief bill with an even more ambitious infrastructure bill, the new president could quickly claim the mantle of most transformative president since Franklin D Roosevelt.

Related: Biden orders commission to study supreme court expansion and reform

Let down by politicians and police, cultural symbols belittled ... unionist teenagers feel marginalised and are taking action

For the schoolboy commander who stood on the grassy hill and gave his name only as Bob, the intricacies and compromises of politics, policing, Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol could all be boiled down to this: his side was losing, and that had to stop.

His side were the Protestants, unionists and loyalists, bulwarks of Britishness on the island of Ireland, and they needed to assert themselves, starting with the traffic roundabout at the bottom of OaNeill Road in Newtownabbey, outside Belfast.

Four journalists face death penalty after being charged with spying and acollaborating with the enemya

A group of Yemeni journalists who survived years of torture in Houthi prisons are calling on the international community to pressure the rebels to free four of their colleagues facing the death penalty.

Abdel-Khaleq Amran, Akram al-Walidi, Hareth Hamid and Tawfiq al-Mansouri were arrested along with six other journalists in raids in the capital, Sanaaa, in the summer of 2015, shortly after the Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemenas war.

The interior secretary has announced the formation of a new unit to investigate the aepidemica of violence

For 30 long years, Ana White has been searching for her sister, Andrea aChicka White. The then 22-year-old Native mother of four, along with an eight-month-old baby, had traveled to Eureka, California, in July 1991 for a court date, after an auto accident. She was spotted hitchhiking home along a freeway near Blue Lake, in northern California. She has been missing ever since.

White, who described her sister as a great mother and very giving person, has repeatedly prodded local law enforcement, who she said have largely given her alip servicea, and helped to spread awareness about the case through social media posts. But for three frustrating decades the situation has remained unchanged.

Now, after the secretary of the interior, Deb Haaland, announced the formation of a new unit to investigate the aepidemica of missing and murdered Native Americans, she said she has suddenly found herself with a renewed sense of hope.

aItas like, oh, suddenly Iam breathing. Itas like Iam being resuscitated,a said White, a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. aIf my feelings were to be visible, thatas what youad see. Somehow, Iave got this oxygen tank right here, and Deb Haaland put it on my side.a

Haaland, the first Indigenous cabinet secretary in US history, announced the formation of the Missing & Murdered Unit (MMU) within the Bureau of Indian Affairs office of justice services earlier this month, just two weeks after being sworn in.

In a statement, Haaland, an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna, described the violence against Native people as a acrisis that has been underfunded for decadesa.

After decades of marriage, spouses take on each othersa personality, and the trauma of loss is brutal

Meg Blackwood had just turned 22 when she walked down the aisle of a Hampshire church, six years after Princess Elizabeth had married Philip Mountbatten. Like the royal couple, Meg and her new husband, Robert, enjoyed a lifelong partnership, which ended when Robert died three years ago.

Meg, who will be 90 this year, misses and thinks about Robert every day. aHe was 95 when he died, so I knew for quite a long time that he was getting towards the end of his life. He had dementia, so I sort of lost him bit by bit a which actually helped because Iad done some of my grieving before he died.a

Our personal recipe collections catalogue the food we have loved a and the dishes we dreamed of making

The cookbooks Iave written about over the past three months were not included randomly. They werenat selected because they offered up 97 clever things to do with a courgette and a spiraliser, or for their novel ways with quinoa. They were chosen because they had a serious impact on how we cook and how we eat. They were big sellers. As a result, week by week, people have discovered that they had the volume I was eulogising on their shelves. Some readers have owned a few of them.

But as this is the last column in the series, itas time to look at a collection of recipes almost everyone has. I certainly have one. Mine has the word aChallengea embossed on the front. Thatas not a description of how hard the recipes are. Itas the name of the venerable stationery company which manufactured the blue, hardcover A4 notebook within which those ideas for dinner are contained. It is our collection of recipes cut from magazines and newspapers, photocopied from a friendas book or scribbled down by a relative. It is an unplanned collage of a good life, or a feverish attempt at one, measured out in ingredients, volumes and oven temperatures. It is the ballad of traybakes and crumbles, of new and sophisticated ways with pasta and swift things to do with chicken and a bunch of lemons.